South Korean and U.S. naval vessels held live-fire drills and deposited antisubmarine bombs today as part of allied efforts to warn North Korea off any future hostile acts, the Associated Press reported.

U.S. confident of U.S. bases in Japan to counter N. Korean threats: Pentagon

The United States is confident that it will be able to use American bases in Japan to respond to threats from North Korea despite growing Japanese affinity with China, a senior U.S. official said Tuesday.

A Japanese government panel will propose shifting defense policy to allow the transportation of U.S. nuclear weapons within the country and lift a ban on arms exports, the Asahi newspaper reported today.

In an interview aired on Iranian state television Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran expects the United States to launch a military strike on "at least two countries" in the Middle East in the next three months.

Iran "deeply regrets and condemns" a new set of tough European Union sanctions aimed at pressuring Tehran to resume talks on its controversial nuclear programme, a foreign ministry spokesman said Tuesday.

Former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix warned Washington and London in the weeks before the 2003 invasion of Iraq that he was growing less confident in evidence Iraq had banned weapons, he said on Tuesday.

Russia today denounced new Iran penalties adopted independently by the European Union this week as part of a campaign to curb atomic activities in the Middle Eastern state that could support nuclear bomb development, Agence France-Presse reported.

France is open to Kuwait and Qatar investors or Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (7011.T) taking a stake in French state-owned energy group Areva (CEPFi.PA), Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said on Wednesday.

The U.K. should consider replacing its submarine-based Trident nuclear deterrent with a cheaper system, a defense research body said, as Prime Minister David Cameron seeks the biggest spending cuts since World War II.

MULTILATERAL ARMS CONTROL AND NONPROLIFERATION

Report finds Russians may not be in compliance, could sink new START pact

The United States believes Russia is not fully complying with international pacts involving chemical and biological weapons, although Moscow has settled most questions about violations of a nuclear arms treaty with the United States, according to a State Department report to be made public Wednesday.

Members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee next week will take steps that could alter the successor agreement to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and potentially impact its chances for ratification, experts following the issue say.

U.S. Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) yesterday suggested the expense of building a highly enriched uranium processing center at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee might ultimately amount to between $4 billion and $5 billion, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported.

A war of words is simmering between the governments of Iran and Russia, potentially placing the latter more squarely in the Western camp on any future attempts to turn the screw on Iran’s nuclear program.

In the wake of enactment of major sanctions against Iran, some in Congress are looking for new ways to tighten the noose further. While Iranian government officials have mused publicly that new sanctions - not just from Washington but also from Europe and the United Nations - will slow their pursuit of nuclear weapons, much more pressure can be applied.

South Korea is the world’s fifth-largest nuclear power generator, and the sixth exporter of atomic power plants. But the nation has never been a full-fledged user of nuclear power for peaceful purposes, nor will it be in the future unless the United States agrees to Seoul’s right to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. And possible discord during the upcoming negotiations over this issue could cause a split in the watertight alliance between the two longtime partners.